I'm a technology, privacy, and information security reporter and most recently the author of the book This Machine Kills Secrets, a chronicle of the history and future of information leaks, from the Pentagon Papers to WikiLeaks and beyond.
I've covered the hacker beat for Forbes since 2007, with frequent detours into digital miscellania like switches, servers, supercomputers, search, e-books, online censorship, robots, and China. My favorite stories are the ones where non-fiction resembles science fiction. My favorite sources usually have the word "research" in their titles.
Since I joined Forbes, this job has taken me from an autonomous car race in the California desert all the way to Beijing, where I wrote the first English-language cover story on the Chinese search billionaire Robin Li for Forbes Asia. Black hats, white hats, cyborgs, cyberspies, idiot savants and even CEOs are welcome to email me at agreenberg (at) forbes.com. My PGP public key can be found here.

After Defense Distributed’s YouTube tests of partially 3D printed semiautomatic weapons, Israel promised last month to specifically ban 3D printed gun components in his proposed renewal of the Undetectable Firearms Act, a law intended to ban the possession of any weapon that can’t be spotted by a metal detector or X-ray machine. And when Defense Distributed demonstrated a 3D printed high-capacity magazine–the exact ammunition feeding devices that would be banned for sale under a new federal gun control bill proposed by Congresswoman Diane Feinstein–Israel responded again, adding a specific ban on those 3D-printed ammo attachments to his proposed bill.

To some critics like blogger and author Cory Doctorow, Israel’s proposed bill sounds like the first of many inevitable attempts to regulate 3D printers and the myriad controversial objects they can produce. But when I sat down with Israel after his press conference about 3D printed guns in a Long Island police station Thursday, he said he had no intention of technologically hamstringing 3D printers or censoring gun blueprints.

Still, his proposed law deals with a new kind of manufacturing, one that seems inherently impossible to restrict in traditional ways. I asked Israel, a longtime gun control advocate, about how he plans to differentiate between already-legal plastic gun magazines and 3D printed ones, other sorts of DIY gunsmithing, and the big question: How to enforce this law in every garage and workshop across the country.

Here’s an edited transcript of our conversation.

Andy Greenberg: To most people, Defense Distributed and their plans to 3D print guns seem like science fiction. But you’ve taken the idea of a 3D printed firearm seriously enough to amend a proposed piece of legislation. What made you decide to champion this issue?

Steve Israel: You said science fiction. One of my guilty pleasures growing up was Star Trek, where they had this thing called a Replicator. You press a button and manufacture a product. That’s not science fiction any more. It’s real. As we get deeper into this national debate on gun safety it seems to me all the executive orders, all the acts of Congress will not be effective if someone can go to a Staples, buy a 3D printer, and manufacture plastic weapons components in their basements.

A statement on your website Wednesday included the line, “Law enforcement officials should have the power to stop high-capacity magazines from proliferating with a Google search.” Some people, including Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson when I spoke to him by phone, interpreted that to possibly mean some kind of Stop-Online-Piracy-Act-style suggestion of filtering search results for gun designs.

Mr. Wilson is trying to create drama where these is none. No one’s trying to interfere with people’s access to the internet. We’re just trying to make it more difficult for an individual to make a homemade gun in his or her basement.

And you’re not talking about some kind of digital rights management or other restrictions on 3D printers either?

Zero. We’re not going there. You want to download the blueprint, we’re not going near that. You want to buy a 3D printer and make something, buy a 3D printer and make something. But if you’re going to download a blueprint for a plastic weapon that can be brought onto an airplane, there’s a penalty to be paid.

Just for downloading it?

No, no, for actually manufacturing it. And we’re not even going after manufacturers, either, but lone wolves, individuals.

I just want to be clear. I’m not seeking to regulate or reduce the use of 3D printers at all. This isn’t about 3D printers. It’s about the use of a 3D printer to manufacture a weapon that can’t be detected by metal detectors.

The 3D printer company Makerbot recently purged blueprints for guns and gun components from the popular 3D printing community site Thingiverse. Do you encourage those kinds of steps by companies in the 3D printing industry?

I would always prefer for the free market to find ways of addressing public policy challenges than to have government come in and try to address it. When they can’t find those ways, there have to be common sense standards people can abide by.

Won’t the real sticking point for this law be its enforcement? The whole idea of Defense Distributed is that the production of these weapons is distributed to living rooms and garages around the country and there’s no centralized manufacturer to regulate. It’s almost like growing marijuana in a closet, something that anyone can do in the privacy of their home that’s very difficult to catch.

I see the analogy. But growing marijuana doesn’t threaten the lives of my constituents.

There’s no one hundred percent guarantee of one hundred percent enforcement, and there’s never that guarantee with any law. What we’re trying to do is make it clear that if you choose to construct a weapon or weapon component using a 3D printer, and it’s homemade, you’ll be subject to penalties. It’s not a guarantee that everyone will be caught and prosecuted, but there has to be some penalty.

Part of this is an educational process. I just came from a police department where the chief of police says that his concern with these “Wiki Weapons” is not that they’ll operate, but that it’s very easy to construct guns that look like the real thing, and it will be much more difficult for police to deal with that. A 3D printer could make it very difficult ot determine what guns are real and which aren’t.

That’s a separate issue, isn’t it? That wouldn’t be addressed by the Undetectable Firearms Act. But I think it’s true that 3D printers are going to open many different cans of worms like that one.

We’re not going to solve every problem. No law can do that. What we’re trying to do is deal with a very specific problem, which is the lone wolf who uses a 3D printer to make a plastic weapon in his home that can be brought onto a plane or into a secure environment.

One part of your legislation that you’ve emphasized a lot calls for a ban on the 3D printing of high-capacity magazines like the ones that Defense Distributed 3D-printed and tested in a video posted to YouTube over the last weekend. But there are lots of plastic magazines already for sale, and they’re not covered by the current Undetectable Firearms Act.

Right. We won’t go near those.

But isn’t it tough differentiate between 3D-printed plastic magazines and plastic magazines created and sold by the usual manufacturers.

As you said in your piece Wednesday, this will be a tricky part. So we’re talking to stakeholders, and working to create a distinction between that lone wolf and legitimate manufacturers of plastic clips. Plastic clips, I get that, I understand there’s an advantage to them. The law will not go near that. I confess this is going to require further conversations.

If I understand the the Undetectable Firearms Act correctly, it exempts licensed manufacturers to allow them to use rapid prototyping tools. Cody Wilson and the Defense Distributed guys you have cited in your speeches and statements, are they the kind of lone wolves you’re talking about? Because they tell me they’re applying for a Federal Firearms License from the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, too, which would make them exempt from the law.

I don’t know about that, so I can’t comment on it. I don’t know what their deal is.

Under a bill being drafted by Representative Diane Feinstein, high-capacity magazines would be banned for sale anyway, right? Do we really need another law focusing on 3D-printed ones?

We don’t know they’ll be banned. We don’t know where this will end up. There are a lot of moving parts, and that’s in process. My focus has been these wiki weapons. If we have a federal ban on assault weapon clips, as in New York, then my legislation is less necessary. But New York state has a law on the books that limits magazines to seven rounds. What good is that when someone can use a 3D printer in some kid’s basement to create a magazine that can fire 86 rounds and then bring it onto an airplane or into Laguardia airport, assemble and fire it?

What about other kinds of homemade magazines and guns made out of metal? It’s possible to machine a gun or components out of metal at home. Someday it’ll be possible to 3D-print in metal at home, too. Those metal homemade guns won’t be covered by your Undetectable Firearms Act.

This legislation is not the solution, this is part of the solution. Given the pace and the growth of this technology, it’s just a matter of common sense to reauthorize the Undetectable Firearms ban. That law was implemented when this was science fiction. It will lapse when this has become a reality.

One of the reasons I’m so involved in this is because I’m a bit of a technical geek. Almost every month the technology seems to be evolving more rapidly and getting more precise. So at the end of the debate we don’t know where we’ll be with wiki weapons.

In 1988 when the Undetectable Firearms Act was passed, the thought of replicating a gun with a 3D printer was a Star Trek episode, when it lapsed in 1998, maybe it was possible one day. In 2003 when it was reauthorized, it seemed maybe, we’re close. Just in the past six months, six bullets were fired from a 3D-printed lower receiver and then 86 from a clip. So every week the technology gets faster, cheaper and more precise. And I just want to make sure we’re being proactive, and not having to explain why we didn’t act when something tragic happens.

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Just one more classic example of the control freak liberal mindset prevailing in this activist “transformational” leadership today. I believe what irritates the congressman most is that he and other determined gun grabbers like him have been outfoxed by innovative young and free minds that understand the meaning of phrase “shall not be infringed”

I simply fail to see how this will be enforced. He’s not stopping people from downloading or making these blueprints, only actually printing the parts. So what does he propose? Add some sort of distinguishing mark to the legit ones? The 3D printed parts will just add that mark to their blueprints. And how will they catch people doing this, anyhow? Raid houses? Wait for a crime to be committed? Check people’s guns? This seems….stupid. This is as pointless as the proposed tax on “violent” games–which apparently means any game that is rated T or M. (Despite the fact that a T or M rating doesn’t necessarily indicate violent content.) Why can’t lawmakers focus on things that would actually be helpful?

A printer is a nice thing, but I’m almost certain I could write computer programs to reproduce every weapon ever conceived by mankind, as well as futuristic ones that would merge the features of all those that exist. It comes down to restricting the imagination of man … something even God ran up against in Genesis 11:6-7 … imagination and evil men … so he put a governor on our reach

I have every faith you could do just that, but as we both know the production capability required to actually make those weapons is out of the reach of most people. The whole Makerbot debate has some curious similarities in my mind to the Napster file sharing controversy years ago. It puts what otherwise would be an orderly civil system of legal controls into disarray because the technology is cheap, easy to use and is available to almost anyone. $150K for a Haas 5 axis? or $2K for a Makerbot?

Mr. Israel either has almost no grasp of the technology or is lookiing for news coverage. It’s silly even to talk about a law like this.

It deals in ‘fuzzy’ concepts (is a tube a gun part?); there is no way of finding a violation w/o a search warrant – not too likely for an invisible, victimless crime by itself; there are all the usual ways of disguising an illegal possession – in CA, 30 round magazines were banned, and vendors started selling smaller ones that could be chained together… and so on. At minimum, those issues would all have to be dealt with before a 3D printing law would have any teeth.

This is an example of the kind of law that should not be passed. It does a bunch of meddling for no purpose or benefit. Does it ‘makes a statement’? So does my dog if you step on his toe; he at least makes sense.

The law is usually behind, even far behind technology. It would appear the problem is as much molasses-witted legislators as it is the speed of technological change.

The First Principle is the Politicians Creed: It is not important to actually DO something, what is important is to be SEEN to be doing something.

The Second Principle is that at the end of the day liberals want guns taken away from the population because until they are the People can resist the Liberals demand to control the lives of the People. The liberals will nibble around the outside, in keeping with the First Principle, and when it becomes glaringly obvious that none of the idiotic dabbling is going to solve that actual problem, they will move in for the grand prize.

A government that does not trust the citizens should not be surprised to find the citizens don’t trust the government. America started on a radical but very simple idea: That the best guardians of liberty are the People who will benefit from it. We have evolved into a nation where the government fears that the liberty enjoyed by the People is dangerous.

My head hurts from reading this. I work in product development and deal with 3D printing of both metals and plastics all day. I also know a few things about guns. This guy demonstrates several times that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. This is exactly the kind of idiot you don’t want making laws.

There is no such thing as a fully plastic gun, 3D printed or otherwise. You can print it, but if you try to use it will blow up in your face. 3D printing doesn’t change the laws of physics, and there is no plastic that is anywhere near as strong enough to function as a chamber or barrel. Mr. Israel describes himself as a technology geek. From reading his comments he seems to know very little about the technology and the people he’s intent on regulating. He’s using confusion and fear to try to support his position.

The “plastic guns” that Defense Distributed are making involve only printing the lower receiver, which is basically the gun frame (just like Glock which has been making plastic pistol frames for 30 years). All the other parts are purchased and the critical components like the barrel and bolt and springs are all metal. Such a weapon cannot be passed through airport security any more easily than a store bought gun with the same specifications. Again he’s relying on confusion to advance his arguments.

The plastic magazine that Defense Distributed is making is not functionally any different (they’re just less durable) than the plastic magazines mass produced by companies like MagPul. Mr. Israel makes it very clear that he won’t limit what businesses can do, but he wants to make people building the same objects in their garage into criminals. How does this benefit the public good again? Plastic magazines will still exist, but you better not make your own…

Also, it has always been legal to build your own firearm, provided you don’t intend to sell them, and you’re legally allowed to own the firearm to begin with (i.e. you can’t make your own pistol if you don’t have a pistol permit). So someone is free to machine metal in their garage into gun components, but if they 3D print anything they’ll go to jail. That doesn’t make any sense. As far as I can tell his law wouldn’t change anything about the current legality of home-made guns made without 3D printing.

It’s not clear that Mr. Israel understands what he’s talking about when it comes to guns: “What good is that when someone can use a 3D printer in some kid’s basement to create a magazine that can fire 86 rounds and then bring it onto an airplane or into Laguardia airport, assemble and fire it?” Someone needs to tell him that A. bullets and their cartridges are metal and would set off a metal detector and B. magazines do not shoot bullets, they just hold them. His scenario is just bizarre. If someone got on a plane with both a gun and some bullets, the type and material of the magazine is just irrelevant. It’s also worth noting that every day people fly with guns, usually by mistake. The TSA has, by their own admissions and testing, a terrible failure rate. Maybe we could work on that instead of attacking the liberty of the people?

The article is several months old. At the point the original comment was made Defense Distributed had only manufactured components for standard guns: IE the lower receiver (the technical “Firearm” according to the BATF, the part that has to be registered) of an AR 15 and other components. Now they have made a .22lr pistol that is almost completely plastic true, but it is probably about 15 times less effective (lethality) than the original “Liberator” pistol manufactured by one of the car companies durring WWII (GM I think). It is still quite possibly lethal, but would be considered far from reliable.

on one hand, I doubt this legislation will be deterrent to someone hellbent on terror, if they want a 3D printed gun, they will just buy a 3d printer!

HOWEVER, on the other side of the coin, if someone is caught selling them, perhaps there would be some prevention as far as the random schmuck who doesn’t want to buy the 3d printer, but just wants the gun, and might be missing a few screws…

Yes, Ian, exactly. All these politicians running around when something new comes about and want new laws governing it. When if they actually would think, they would realize there already IS a law involved.